Currently, postal delivery services such as the United States Postal Service™ (the U.S. Postal Service™) deliver mail items to recipients based upon an address affixed or labeled onto the mail item. The address may contain identifying information such as a name, a street, a city, a state, and a ZIP Code™, which in combination may specify a specific delivery point. The ZIP Code™ may represent a geographic location in the United States and have a five (5) digit designation. For example, the ZIP Code™ of 20001 represents a particular geographic location in Washington, DC. Additional digits may be added to the ZIP Code™ to further specify a more exact delivery segment within the geographic location. A ZIP+4™ code may be such a designation and may represent a specific delivery segment within the geographic location identified by the ZIP Code™.
Having the additional four (4) digits on the ZIP+4™ code may allow more efficient sorting and delivery of an item (e.g., a letter, package, etc.) through a process for delivering mail within the U. S. Postal Service™. Incentives for using the ZIP+4™ code may also be offered to customers. For example, high volume customers using the U.S. Postal Service™ may receive discounts for providing a ZIP+4™ code on a mail item. The ZIP+4™ code allows the U.S. Postal Service™ to more efficiently sort and deliver the mail, thus saving money due to a reduction of operating costs. Further, these savings may be passed along to the customers using the ZIP+4™ code. Therefore, it may be desirable to code all addresses with a ZIP+4™ code, where possible, because the sorting and delivery of mail will be more efficiently handled.
Inherent in the business of delivering mail items are problems associated with incorrect or inaccurate addresses associated with the mail items. In the past, addresses were corrected by manual means. For example, if a mailer had an inaccurate or incorrect address, the mailer could submit their mail list to a District Address Management Systems department in the U.S. Postal Service™ who would attempt to correct the inaccuracy. In correcting the address, the department would additionally attempt to match the address with a corresponding ZIP+4™ code.
For manual correction, the District Address Management Systems department would send a hard copy form to delivery units throughout the United States. The delivery units may be local post offices for a particular ZIP Code™. The delivery units filled out the hard copy forms with correct address information, which included indicating a ZIP+4™ code, and mailed the forms back to the District Address Management Systems department. The corrected addresses, with the proper ZIP+4™ code designation, would be returned in hard copy to the mailer for their entry into their central repository by data entry personnel.
Another attempt to update mailer addresses included sending deficient addresses to delivery unit computers. In this attempt, address records were sent electronically to delivery unit computers and delivery unit personnel would print out the address record on a hard copy, make corrections on the hard copy including the ZIP+4™ code, and mail the corrections to an Address Element Correction department at a National Customer Support Center associated with the United States Postal Service™. Once received, the corrections and ZIP+4™ were keyed into a central repository by data entry personnel.
Several disadvantages arose from these attempts to update and correct the central repository including the following. First, delivery units failed to respond to the hard copy mailings and addresses were not corrected. Second, there was not an easy or efficient way to track the information being sent so that performance could be measured. Therefore, not only were delivery units failing to respond to the requests for correction of addresses, there was no way to hold the delivery units accountable for their failure to respond to the requests.
Thus, it is desirable to provide an electronic and automated system to deliver addresses that need correction to delivery units and allow electronic revisions to the addresses by the delivery unit. Tracking of the actions taken at the delivery unit allows management to assign accountability for the correction of address records.